There are more things in heaven and earth

November 07, 2007

I was handing out candy on Halloween, and a 4-year-old boy (I'm guessing) came to the door looking rather dazed. Some kids are sensitive to too much stimulation and they sort of shut down, taking on a glassy-eyed appearance. I recognized the symptoms in this little guy. I gave him some candy and said Happy Halloween, and he started to leave.

His mom grabbed him by the arm... or maybe she was holding him by the arm the entire time, I can't say for sure. But she pulled him back toward the door and said "What do you say?" in that steely tone that I associate with the stressed-out, uber-competitive parent.

The kid turned and looked at me, but said nothing. His mom then said in an even nastier tone: "Do we have to go back home right now?"

"You're welcome," the kid managed to say. The mom gave me a very fake smile and told me (totally unnecessarily because I had obviously heard him) "He said you're welcome." As if to say "Well, don't blame me, at least he tried to display good manners, even if he got it wrong." Ironically it was her behavior that I thought was totally unacceptable.

Most of the younger kids had parents coming to the door alongside them to police the Thank-You's. Halloween is-- in practice, notwithstanding its pagan origins-- a holiday based on the entertainment of children. If a kid does not say thank you, who the hell cares? Should little kids struggling with the weirdness of Halloween and the inconveniences of their costumes really be expected to remember their Thank-You's at every single house? Are adults really so curmudgeonly that they would be offended if some Thank-You's went missing?

Everything in children's lives, at least in my academic / professional community, has been turned into yet another performance meant to prove what great parents they have (i.e. how well-trained the kid is). Utterly lost in this is any concern about whether children have enough joy in their lives. In the list of things parents are supposed to do, involving academic lessons, driving them to sports practice, taking them to doctors, making them eat vegetables, restricting TV, insuring they brush their teeth (it's a LONG list)-- the kid's actual happiness, as a quantity, is not on the agenda. Halloween ought to be a day when children's enjoyment is top priority, but even then kids are not off the hook. Many of these kids are simply never off the hook.

Parents don't want their kids to be miserable, of course. But many of them define contentedness in material terms. If the kid has 14 Webkinz and a pair of Wheelies and their own bedroom complete with their own computer... well, they're practically spoiled, what more could they ask for? And if Mom and Dad stretched to buy a house in an affluent school district, and they now drive the kids to umpteen extra-curricular activities, the parents often feel that their kids should be grateful-- which is to say, happy.

The whole idea that childhood is gleeful and free is pretty much out the window. I suppose it's no surprise, in the midst of all this parental angst, if little attention is paid to kids' happiness. I found these article titles (among a longer list) at a popular webpage on parenting:

Talking with Children About ViolenceStress Goes to School: How parents can helpStudy Skills and StrategiesDevelopmental ScreeningGirls Bullying GirlsTalking with Your School Age ChildBackpack Basics ("Building responsibility and good study habits starts early!")Bullies and VictimsUnderstanding Standardized Test ScoresFostering ResiliencyEncouraging IndependenceCoping with TantrumsTeaching Self-Control

This is horrible. What happened to childhood?

Avoiding mental illness, which seems to be the goal of psychology these days, is not equivalent to providing joy in your child's life. The experts always have something to say about helping your child "cope". They rarely encourage you to promote sheer glee in your child's life, nor have any suggestions as to how you do that. I have never read an article or book that said "It's okay to make a fart joke when amongst young children. Kids love it!" And yet... try it sometime, you won't believe how hard kids laugh when a grown-up unexpectedly stoops to their level of humor. Some person might call me crass, but my children have probably laughed more than theirs have, so I don't mind.

Here's another admission: Tristan loves SpongeBob SquarePants, and I cannot resist letting him watch it because he belly-laughs several times every episode when some stupid slapstick thing happens. Yes, there's cartoon violence-- but have you heard a little kid belly-laugh recently? Who can resist that? I myself remember laughing until I cried and couldn't breathe over a Yosemite Sam bit where his horse was out of control. He finally yelled "When I say 'Whoa,' I mean 'WHOA'!" and bashed the horse over the head with a board. It was hysterically funny to me at the time (age 7-ish?). Was that harmful? Should I have been at swimming lessons or soccer practice instead of laughing like a loon on a Saturday morning? Or was it important to have that Saturday morning comedy and that down time?

Laughing, by the way, is physically healthy. It produces endorphins, decreases stress hormones (such as cortisol) for as much as 24 hours after a good bout of laughter, clears the lungs of mucus, and relaxes blood vessels. Also, whatever pathways are heavily used in a child's brain will tend to be strengthened, so that, other things being equal, a child who is often happy will be more likely to be happy as an adult.

Besides, we are obviously doing something wrong as a society, and we ought to be searching for what has gone awry. In 2005, there were 118 million prescriptions for anti-depressants written in the US-- more than for any other category of drug. Might things be different if we gave children truly happy, laughter-filled childhoods?

December 14, 2006

Before I had kids, I didn't like the idea that DNA played a major role in who one's kids were. I wanted to think that my own excellent parenting (and who doesn't think they'll be an excellent parent?) would create these wonderful, polite, well-behaved, knowledgeable, mature kids. I figured people were about 90% the creation of their environment and relationships, and 10% genetically determined, so my kids would be... well, stupendous in every respect, right? (This was also the era when, laughably enough, I believed we wouldn't even have a TV in the house.)

Popular parenting books sell themselves by implying that kids are nothing but the product of their parenting (so if you want good kids, you'd better buy this book). Parenting magazines make the same argument, for the same financial reasons. The educational toy industry rests on the assumption that kids are either smart or dumb (according to a very narrow definition of intelligence) depending on their parents' consumer behavior. And advertisers of baby-related products are, of course, trying to use our parental love to make us buy things, and that's best achieved if we believe that we shape our kids almost entirely, particularly in the first year or two. Obviously, parenting plays a very strong role in the kind of person a child grows up to be, but business interests and professionals concerned with children subtly push us to think it plays the only role.

One massive drawback to our cultural belief that parenting creates people is that we underestimate the natural variability of babies and kids. It's not just our schools that behave as if children are homogenous and interchangeable. Have you ever seen a parenting book that divides kids into several different personality types, and then tailors advice on potty training, bedtime struggles, or tantrums according to your child's particular personality? Dieting books talk about metabolic type and tailor their suggestions accordingly, but I've never seen a similar approach in a parenting book. Among adults, even the corporate workplace often acknowledges personality type through things like the Myers-Briggs test. But one bit of advice fits all, when it comes to popular parenting.

One thing that isn't often discussed among parents is that some children are orders of magnitude more stubborn than other children. This is a difference which affects basically every other aspect of parenting during the toddler and preschool years, and yet, you can't really discuss it with mere acquaintances, because to claim your kid is simply more stubborn than most sounds like some kind of parenting cop-out. Nor would you want to crow about how tremendously docile your child is, as this would annoy other moms, e.g. the moms who feel it's a personal triumph that their kid is wearing clothing.

Here's an example. I had read, a few year back, that you shouldn't give in to a 2- or 3-year-old having a tantrum, because what they learn, then, is that in order to get their way they need only throw another tantrum. It seemed so unassailably logical that even though it was heart-wrenching to let Anya cry and carry on, I tried this... exactly once. One afternoon we had a dispute, and I didn't give in for the longest time-- three hours, I'd guess-- because I had convinced myself that the first time I put my foot down would be the hardest and after this she would be... I don't know, meeker. But what I belatedly realized was that this common advice about tantrums was based on an assumption I hadn't detected at first, namely: that at some point the child will give up. My kids do not give up. Explanation and negotiation are your only recourse, and that's the end of that story. Putting your foot down like a drill sergeant is an exercise in futility and only tortures everyone involved.

I realize that some people with easier kids wouldn't believe me, and would think I lacked commitment or that I was exaggerating. And that brings me to the unspoken truth surrounding difficult, challenging, unusual, yes-we-love-them-but-damn-are-we-tired kids. The parents who don'thave tough kids don't know they don't have tough kids. If you try commiserating with them, they explain to you what they did in your situation-- or what they think they did-- to produce their passive, docile, obedient cherubs. The (usually unintended) implication is: what the hell did you do wrong?

I said to a mom recently (a mom that I like, by the way) that Anya is a really picky eater. And she said "Well, we just didn't give our kids much choice about the food they ate." I just smiled faintly and didn't say much, recognizing that she clearly had no concept whatsoever of the term "picky eater". I didn't have hard feelings, I just knew that she didn't get it. This would be my definition:

Picky Eater: n. A child who will willingly starve and forego meals rather than eat undesirable foods; behavior is often accompanied by phobic reactions and/or excessive gag reflex.

I should make it clear that I have never let Anya go hungry for very long, but we did once spend an entire afternoon in on-and-off crying, pleading, and bargaining (this applies to both of us) over a lunch dispute. In the end I had to give in because she still had not eaten lunch and it was time to start making dinner. I have tried bribes, and I've even tried appealing to her competitive nature, by pointing out that her younger brother will eat anything (seriously: sushi, hot and sour soup, curries, kalamata olives, asparagus, salad, gorgonzola, lentils... anything). As things stand, Anya will not even touch the pieces of grape or apple we drop into her bug cage to feed insects. So, the idea that you can set food on the table, act stern, and eventually your kids will acquiesce and agree to eat it... well, sure they will. As long as they aren't picky eaters.

To give another example, I'm friends with a mom who does attachment parenting and has very well-behaved kids. They don't run off, throw tantrums, or shout "No!" as far as I have ever seen. She carries her youngest around in a sling most of the time. This mom was present when, a year or so ago, Tristan was having an unholy fit at a botanical conservatory with a cement floor, and I had to get down on the floor with him and protect his head so he wouldn't bash it against the cement. He was screaming and I couldn't even move, couldn't even gather up Anya and prepare to escape (she was nowhere to be seen-- another mom went to fetch her, thankfully)... and this attachment parenting mom said to me, sympathetically, "I do have an extra sling, if you want it." Which was very kind of her, but my children never put up with swaddling or slings or baby carriers for more than the first few weeks of life. Yes, I am an attachment parent, but no, my kids did not like slings. The idea that a sling could cure the torrential fury of one of my children's tantrums was somewhat comical.

I used to draw conclusions about parents based on their kids' behavior (particularly before I had kids, as is always the case). It seems to be the knee-jerk reaction, to look at a child's actions and immediately assess what this says about the kid's parents. But why? Isn't it more direct to wonder what this says about the child, their innate characteristics, and who they might become as adults? Why don't we go to playgroups and story hour and playgrounds and think, "Boy, she's given to theatrics," instead of "Boy, is she spoiled"? Or, "Aw, he's a sensitive little guy," instead of "She coddles him too much." Or "Sheesh, if he can lie like that he must be destined for Congress" instead of "Wow, have his parents ever heard of instilling honesty?"

We've gone too far toward denying genes and either glorifying or blaming parents. This parenting culture produces guilt and fear because every second of a child's behavior is taken as evidence of our parenting by a large proportion of society. And meanwhile, our children's individuality is ignored, their innate characteristics go unappreciated.

November 29, 2006

I was at That Library the other day-- the library right downtown in Academia Central, land of the stressed yuppie parent. This is the library where a mom I'd never seen before asked my daughter if she could spell her last name and whether she was reading yet. This is the library with a large tropical fish tank, where I once overheard a father get into a tense argument with his 3-year-old over the little boy's claim that Nemo is the only clownfish in the movie. (Dad didn't merely contradict him and mention Nemo's dad-- oh no, he kept it up, drilling his kid on what characterized a clownfish and going so far as to introduce the definition of 'species'. In the end he pulled rank, announcing that he, as Dad, was simply correct, while the kid, as a Kid, was wrong.)

This is the library where moms plunk their infants down in a sitting position and keep nudging and poking them upright, at an age when clearly they would be happier lying on their backs (or better yet, cradled in their mother's arms-- hellllooooo people!). And then, while the poor kid is totally focused on not toppling over, Mom quizzes them on the colors of small plastic cars. I wish I were exaggerating.

This time around, there was a little girl who had only recently learned to walk, toddling around with a small clear plastic beanbag containing objects beginning with "O". Clearly said beanbag was meant for older kids, but Mom was not deterred. "Look, it's an Octopus!! OC-TO-PUS!! OOOOOctopus!! Octopus begins with O!" And it went on, because there were numerous little tiny miniatures inside the beanbag.

I had several reactions.

1) Is she just at the library to exhibit High-Pressure Academic Parenting in a desperate bid for positive feedback from other whack-job moms?

2) Did she skip her medication this morning?

3) Did she accidentally divide 13 months by 12 and come up with 5, and then misunderstand where her kid should be developmentally?

4) Has she been reading "There's Nothing Fun About Childhood, Missy" or "Drill and Kill: Age 1"?

What I should have done was to carry out a very loud conversation with Tristan (age 2), along these lines:

"Which one is the equine, Tristan? Is this the equine, or the bovine? Oh, GOOD JOB, you're right!! It's the PORCINE! Very good. And would you say 'porcine' is from the Latin root, or the Greek?"

October 02, 2006

The BBC today has an article titled "Confused, Guilty, and Pregnant," regarding the large amount of health advice given to pregnant women, and the fact that it's often contradictory. Below the article are readers' comments, such as:

I'm 25 weeks pregnant with my first child, and I feel
completely overwhelmed by the amount of information I'm expected to
digest. Thanks to books and studies I've found myself reading the back
of every packet of food wondering if the contents are safe. At one
point I found myself in tears over whether or not an e-number was
dangerous. [An E-number is a code for a food additive, used in the E.U.] In order to put my mind at rest, I've stopped everything; no
alcohol, no caffeine, no peanuts, and no herbs (apparently things like
basil and sage are uterine stimulants). The amount of hearsay around to
panic pregnant women is unbelievable....

I can empathize. I spent my first pregnancy glued to the computer, reading abstracts on PubMed and checking out various countries' health recommendations. (No two countries have the same policy on anything except smoking.) I refused a lot of tests and interventions-- no alpha-fetoprotein test, no ultrasound, no induced labor, etc. We have a genetic factor in my family that causes blood to clot more easily, and I decided not to test for that at all, since I would not have followed the advised treatment anyway if I had tested positive. And of course, I continued to read about labor and birth, all the moreso because I was planning to give birth very differently than most American women. (I have now had two unmedicated, natural births.)

But I'm not giving you the full flavor here... actually, for that whole first pregnancy, I was a complete freak. I cried in frustration after every prenatal appointment. I had imaginary conversations with my midwife. I once brought a bibliography to a prenatal (I so wish I was kidding!). I wanted approval for my well-reasoned decisions, but what I didn't understand was that due to the necessity of retaining her malpractice insurance, it was impossible for my midwife to condone my decisions because they went against medical protocol. So, every appointment I came in armed to the teeth with my reasoning for refusing yet another test, and every appointment Joan merely said "It's your choice," and left me feeling like she disapproved.

Modern medicine views pregnancy and labor as nothing more than a catastrophe waiting to happen, and their sole focus is on identifying problems and risk factors. If you educate yourself, you discover that many of their practices have a net negative effect. Denying women water during labor causes their uterus to work less efficiently, increasing the risk of complications. Not letting women move around slows labor, and increases the need for pain relief. Continuous fetal monitoring results in worse outcomes for the mother and baby than intermittent fetal monitoring. There is no reason to check dilation except at admission and when you get the urge to push, and every time they do so, they increase the risk of infection. Episiotomy, contrary to widespread belief, actually increases the risk of serious injury to the mother. Various pain killers increase the risk of a C-section (you may very well not care, by the time you're in active labor, but at least they should admit this). Non-medical methods of pain relief (massage, water, acupressure, acupuncture, and hypnosis) are usually impossible to include in labor, at least at most hospitals. Sure, they sell you on the jacuzzi tub, only to tell you later that you can't use it for one reason or another.

During pregnancy, certain tests make sense, but many are ridiculous. I worked it out that if I got the AFP test (for Down's syndrome), because there is a 10% false positive rate which then necessitates amniocentesis, and because there is a slight risk that an amnio can cause miscarriage, it was actually more likely that I would lose a healthy baby than that the baby would have Down's in the first place. I did the probability calculations by hand. I brought my little notebook sheet in to Joan, to prove to her how reasonable I was being. (She took the calculations and stuck them in my file, apparently as evidence in case of a future malpractice suit.)

When you educate yourself about pregnancy, labor and birth-- not simply by reading books by MD's, but by looking into the actual studies and considering all the alternatives-- you inevitably end up going against some protocol. At that point you run into strong resistance. They play on your fears, and fear is a very powerful emotion. They'll say things like "But what if something were wrong with the baby, could you live with yourself later?" Never mind if that particular risk is 1 in 1,200 or 1 in 10,000 or whatever it is. Fear is how they make you comply.

For anyone out there who's pregnant, I have this advice: be strong, recognize when they are using fear, and respond to them with science. But don't expect them to approve, and try not to give a shit when they tsk, tsk. (I actually loved my midwife, but she had to consult with OB's, and they were uniformly bastards.) I gave birth to an 11-pound, 4-ounce boy and his birth was faster and easier than the birth of my 7-pound, 11-ounce daughter, which I think is an example of nature finding a way. Natural selection over the millenia means that the vast majority of mothers and babies will be fine, with minimal assistance. Nature is on your side.

And for god's sake, if What To Expect When You're Expecting is anywhere in your home, take it out and burn it.